"Perhaps I don't find my own very inspiring."
He raised his eyebrows, but made no comment.
"Perhaps I had better tell you my name," he said, after a pause. "I am in a fashion connected with this place—a sort of friend of the family, if it isn't presumption to put it that way. My name is Julian Carfax, and Ralph Cochrane, the next-of-kin, is a pal of mine, a very great pal. He was coming over to England. Perhaps you heard. But he's a very shy fellow, and almost at the last moment he decided not to face it at present. I was coming over, so I undertook to explain. I spoke to Lady Raffold in town over the telephone, and told her. She seemed to be rather affronted, for some reason. Possibly it was my fault. I'm not much of a diplomatist, anyway."
He seated himself on a mossy stone below her with this reflection, and began to cast pebbles into the brown water.
Priscilla watched him gravely. What he had told her interested her considerably, but she had no intention of giving herself away by betraying it.
There was a decided pause before she made up her mind how to pursue the subject.
"I had no idea that an American could be shy," she said then.
Carfax turned with his pleasant smile.
"No? We're a pushing race, I suppose. But I think Cochrane had some excuse for his timidity this time."
"Yes?" said Priscilla.